Recent research attributes the lack of merit pay in teaching to the resistance of teachers. This paper examines whether the structure of merit pay affects the types of teachers who support it. We develop a model of the relative utility teachers receive from merit pay versus the current fixed schedule of raises. We show that if teachers are risk…

A common problem in predictive validity studies in the educational and psychological fields, e.g. in educational and employment selection, is restriction in range of the predictor variables. There are several methods for correcting correlations for restriction of range. The aim of this paper was to examine the usefulness of two approaches to…

The Assessment of Basic Learning Abilities (ABLA) test is a useful assessment and training tool for persons with developmental disabilities. The present study assessed the predictive validity of the ABLA test with 16 children diagnosed with an autistic spectrum disorder, eight who performed at ABLA Level 4 and eight who performed at ABLA Level 6.…

In response to the shift from a system-centred care model to a person-centred support model, the Supports Intensity Scale (SIS) has been developed as an instrument to assess the support needs of persons with intellectual disabilities. The instrument is used as a tool for constructing individual support plans, as well as a tool for resource…

Medical schools can assist students by providing them with quality career counseling to help them choose a medical specialty. Many schools use interest inventories to help identify students' specialty interests. This study examined the predictive validity of one such inventory, the Medical Specialty Preference Inventory (MSPI). In a longitudinal…

The Academic Behavioural Confidence (ABC) scale has been shown to be valid and can be useful to teachers in understanding their students, enabling the design of more effective teaching sessions with large cohorts. However, some of the between-group differences have been smaller than expected, leading to the hypothesis that the ABC scale many not…

The assessment of early literacy and numeracy skills can provide useful and important information in pursuance of the goal to increase student academic achievement. At present, there have been promising results using curriculum-based measurement (CBM) for evaluating early literacy and early numeracy. There has been little research investigating…

Federal legislation has prescribed the increased use of statewide achievement tests as the culmination of a student's knowledge and ability at the end of a grade level; however, schools need to be able to predict those who are at-risk of performing poorly on these high-stakes tests. Three studies served to identify a means of predicting statewide…

Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) has been associated with organizational effectiveness in many studies. Therefore, it is important to learn more about how these behaviors can be improved in schools. Creating a reliable and valid measure of OCB that has conceptual equivalence across cultures is a first step in understanding and…

By the end of the kindergarten, students are expected to possess early academic skills as well as the social maturity to be successful in first grade. Students leaving kindergarten without these readiness skills are sometimes held back in first grade or referred for a special education evaluation in later grades if they fail to make adequate…

The purpose of this study was to examine whether performance in MI could predict the performance in reading competency. The other objectives were to identify the components of MI which are correlated with the reading test scores, and to determine the relationship between the multiple intelligences and reading proficiency. A descriptive and ex post…

First-year grade point average (FYGPA) is an oft-referenced outcome criterion for assessments of the predictive validity of a variety of admissions mechanisms. Unfortunately, few studies examine the relationship between FYGPA and long-term outcomes such as graduating grade point average and six-year graduation. Influenced by Wilson's (1980)…

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of the number of transitions by students from school to school on their mathematics achievement. Transition is defined as the number of times a student has changed schools from Kindergarten to the current school year. This study also looked at the relationship between the students' perceived…

Verbal and quantitative reasoning tests provide valuable information about cognitive abilities that are important to academic success. Information about these abilities may be particularly valuable to teachers of students who are English-language learners (ELL), because leveraging reasoning skills to support comprehension is a critical aptitude…

First-year students are still failing at an alarming rate. This is an international issue that universities face and there is currently no clear indication of the cause of the problem as universities move from being elite to providing mass education. This article examines the possible correlation between students' high school performance and…